Neither For Me The Honey, Nor The Honeybee
by Lomonaaeren
Summary: HPDM, HPOMC. Harry gave up the sweetness and the sting, both, for a life of normality. He doesn't know whether he made the right decision, but the decision is made, now, and there's no way Draco would take him back. COMPLETE.


**Title: **Neither For Me The Honey, Nor The Honeybee

**Disclaimer: **J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.

**Pairing: **Harry/Draco (past), Harry/OMC

**Warnings: **Angst, arguably dysfunctional relationship, present tense

**Rating: **R

**Wordcount:** 3200

**Summary: **Harry gave up the sweetness and the sting, both, for a life of normality. He doesn't know whether he made the right decision, but the decision is made, now, and Draco would never take him back.

**Author's Notes: **The title comes from a fragment of Sappho as translated by A. S. Kline.

**Neither For Me The Honey, Nor The Honeybee**

"Hard day at work?"

Harry raises his head and nods, smiling, grateful that Daniel understands without him having to speak. He sighs and leans against Daniel's shoulder as his partner sinks down on the couch beside him. Daniel strokes Harry's face, cheek up to hairline, and Harry closes his eyes. It's something Draco used to do, sometimes, but in the opposite direction, which makes it different enough that Harry would never tell Daniel to stop.

"Do you want me to make dinner?"

Harry clutches, hard, at Daniel's wrist for a moment, and then lets go. What he wants is for Daniel to ask him what made his day so hard—conflicts with other Aurors, or people besieging him for his opinion on the latest unimportant political scandal, or a fight with Ron.

But Daniel would never press. Not blue-eyed, gentle, black-haired Daniel. He'll let Harry talk about it in his own time, and the only times he really gets upset is when it would be normal to get upset, like if Harry is brooding on the same thing for days at a time, or refuses to talk to him at _all_.

"Yeah," Harry says, and lets Daniel go. "I'd really appreciate it."

Daniel smiles at him, once, and goes off to the kitchen. Harry leans back on the couch and closes his eyes, shutting out the sight of their gentle, normal, common drawing room, with the wood panels on the walls and the flowered couches that Daniel likes and the photographs of the Weasley family and Daniel's parents and brother and nieces and nephew on every flat surface. At the moment, he wants to think of something else.

_Draco._

* * *

"Fuck you, then, Potter."

Harry whips back around. It still makes him furious that, months after they started sleeping together, Draco still calls him by his last name every chance he gets, looming and sneering like he never grew out of being the Hogwarts bully. In fact, the only time he's called Harry by his first name was when he threw something at Harry, and Harry collapsed on the floor with blood running from a shallow wound in his forehead.

"I just don't want to _talk _about it," Harry snaps. "Because you always insult Ron, and that just makes me more upset."

Draco tilts his head back, sneering. His profile looks perfect when he does that, and he knows it. It infuriates Harry all the more, that Draco will take time to _pose _in the middle of a row. "You're not upset now?"

"It's a different kind of upset."

"Speak English, Potter."

Harry turns to the stairs. He's just going to go upstairs to his own bedroom—the only nice thing about living in the Manor is that it has so many rooms Harry can be a full wing away from Draco if he wants, and hear nothing—and brood there. He'll leave the fight until Draco isn't reduced to picking at his grammar.

But Draco seizes him by his shoulder, and spins him into the wall, and Harry winces as he bites his tongue from the force of his stagger. Draco leans towards him, shaking, holding him still while his eyes dart obsessively over Harry's face.

"No," he says, in a low voice that washes over Harry's jaw like pure heat. "You don't get to walk away instead of talking to me."

"It's the way I deal with anger," Harry said, twisting his words a little so they'll mince and he's imitating the tones that Draco uses to say things like, _This is the way I deal with blood politics, _or _This is the way I deal with Weasleys. _"Leave me alone."

"And have you be a whiny little bitch all afternoon? No," Draco snaps, and kisses him, and Harry hates the way he does that, too, because Harry _always _surrenders, even when his hands were up because he wanted to punch Draco. But all Draco has to do is lean forwards, put some weight on him, keep him there, and Harry's melting and flowing like wax in his arms.

He likes to surrender, likes it a lot better than he ever thought he did when they were fighting a war.

And, of course, when Draco pulls him up to his bedroom, Harry doesn't fight.

* * *

"Thanks, Daniel."

Harry means it. It _is _nice to come home to a partner who's willing to share the burden of the cooking. Draco never did, but then, there were house-elves around to do it if neither of them felt like it. It was undoubtedly a more luxurious life.

Harry halts that train of thought, destroying the tracks on the way, and reaches for the dish of salad in the center of the table. It doesn't look perfect, the leaves of lettuce a little wilted and the tomatoes a bit white, but that's the way Harry wants it. Perfect food is a hallmark of house-elves preparing it, and they don't have any. Hermione would be indignant if she found out that they were using Kreacher, even, except on the rare occasions that they stay at Grimmauld Place.

Daniel smiles at him and plunges his fork into his own salad. Harry watches him. He has a few freckles on his hands, a few dimples in his cheeks. So little like Draco, even though Daniel was also raised in a pure-blood family.

That's the _point_.

* * *

When Draco is making love to him, Harry can't think of anything else.

That's the reason he so often uses it to settle arguments, of course. Harry tosses his head back on the pillow, and pants, and knows that. He flexes his fingers, his wrists trapped under Draco, held down until Harry thinks he can feel the pressure of Draco's hands on his veins themselves.

Draco kisses him, stealing Harry's attention back to his face from his hands, and thrusts into him. Harry's head goes back, and he bites his lip.

"Stop _doing _that, Potter," Draco hisses into his ear. "I want to hear you." He kisses Harry hard enough to steal breath this time, and twists to the side—how does he even have the grace and balance to _do _that when Harry's lying on the bed and Draco is holding down his hands and balancing Harry's legs on his shoulders at the same time?—and thrusts in from a new angle. Harry cries out raggedly this time, hating himself even more. It's another surrender.

"_Yes_," Draco says, and Harry supposes he could count that as his own victory, except that the expression of joy on Draco's face doesn't make it look as though he's giving in. His face is brilliant with his sweat, his hands are slippery with it, but still he doesn't let go. He thrusts, and thrusts.

Harry always comes first, no matter how ready Draco is when he gets inside Harry. He always comes untouched, yielding for Draco, giving up his orgasm just because Draco wants him to and tells him that's what he's going to do.

He hates it.

And he hates the way Draco lies on top of him afterwards, stroking down his sides and murmuring deliriously about how wonderful he is, the way he gives in, how only he gets to see Harry like this, only he gets to see the Great Potter give it up.

_Give in. _The refrain is everywhere, and Harry closes his eyes. But then Draco pinches his nipple and makes him open them again.

"Here," Draco says, and kisses him, and Harry knows that he doesn't mean the word simply to indicate the kiss.

* * *

"Do you want to…"

Daniel asks hesitantly, reaching out to steal his fingers around Harry's wrist. Harry smiles at him and stands up.

"I'd like to suck you, if you don't mind," he says. He does want to. Daniel always blushes beautifully when Harry offers, and appreciates it, and reciprocates if Harry wants him to. He's enthusiastic and responsive and pliant. Harry loves that last bit the most.

It's something Draco could never be. Or only one of them could be, out of him and Draco, and Draco was the one who insisted, who enforced, that Harry be.

_Except it wasn't like that, _the voice of Harry's incurable honesty whispers to him. _You wanted to let go and be taken care of, and he's the only one who persisted enough to force you into admitting that._

Harry shakes his head a little as he takes Daniel's hand and leads him up to the bedroom. If someone has to force him into admitting it in the first place, then there's something wrong with the desire. That's the way it is.

And besides, he made his choice. There's no way Draco would take him back.

* * *

Draco laughs ahead of him, spiraling up to the sun.

Harry follows him, striving furiously, rage ripping through his body that Draco can rise like this, so effortlessly, and Harry doesn't fly as easily as he used to. Of course, Draco has nothing all day to do but practice flying and lie around in bed eating luxurious food and admiring his portraits if he wants to. Harry defended the Malfoys well enough that, while Lucius went to prison, Draco and Narcissa got to keep their Manor and their money.

While Harry works as an Auror, Draco does whatever he damn well pleases, and then wraps himself around Harry when he gets back to the Manor.

Harry never thinks of it as home.

Draco turns, a shadow against the sun, and drops straight back down to him, hovering opposite him, pacing him without panting. Harry tosses his head back and glares, and Draco laughs, and dances on the broom, and turns sideways again, spinning over and over in a barrel roll that Harry knows he doesn't dare imitate. He's already starting to lose his grip on the broom.

"What's the matter?" Draco says, and winks at him. "Can't stand the thought that you might lose?"

Harry pushes, harder and harder, and suddenly shoots past Draco. The blink, the pant, the look of surprise on Draco's face is gratifying.

And he feels young again, young and alive and reckless, and God, he's flying so fast, and he could fall to the ground, and he doesn't care.

Then he does fall. His hands loosen, and he catapults over the broom and out into space. His wand is already in his hand, performing the charms that will slow him down and cushion his landing, but he's still falling. He's annoyed with himself.

Then Draco seizes him around the waist, and drags Harry onto his own broom. His kiss is punishing. He bends Harry back over the bristles, fingers digging into his wrists, murmuring an incantation into Harry's half-open mouth.

Harry assumes it's a preparation incantation, and that Draco is going to land and fuck him. But instead, they land, and Draco stands up with a smirk, and Harry yelps as the movement jerks him upright as well.

"Draco, what the fuck—"

"Leading incantation," Draco says flatly. "Like they use on babies to make them stay close to their mothers. Because you can't be trusted away from me, like as not."

And he turns and strides up to the house, Harry running behind him. He tries several spells to make the invisible leash let go, but nothing works.

Draco falls asleep wrapped so closely around him that night that Harry feels half-suffocated. He stares up at the ceiling, and tries not to think of how warm he feels, how safe and protected. The fact remains that Draco _shouldn't _have the power to do anything like that to him. That's the fact.

And the fact is that Harry despises himself for allowing it.

* * *

Daniel is asleep. He always falls asleep right after Harry sucks him, unless he wants to suck Harry, too. And tonight, he was too tired. He just offered Harry a ridiculous, sleepy, sweet smile, and then slumped over almost in the middle of a sentence. He lies on the bed with a hand curled beneath his cheek, a position Harry can never sleep in because his hand starts hurting. He looks impossibly innocent.

Harry strokes his cheek and closes his eyes. He wonders what Daniel would say if he knew the full truth about Harry's relationship with Malfoy. He knows they were dating—

Harry checks himself. No, that isn't the truth. He and Malfoy danced warily around each other for a while at Ministry parties that someone thought it was a brilliant idea to invite Malfoy to, and then they fucked, and then Malfoy learned the truth about Harry, somehow, that stupid idea of surrendering that part of his soul has, and moved in and did what he wanted.

_What I wanted, too._

Harry sighs to himself, and lies down next to Daniel. That's the truth, that's the end. He wanted it, or Malfoy could never have persuaded Harry to stay as long as he had.

But it's _stupid, _the part of him that was so grateful and glad and happy for what Malfoy did to him, because Harry also wants to be free. And strong. And on top, sometimes. Daniel's happy to allow that, but Malfoy never wanted to. He says that Harry couldn't fuck him the way he fucked Harry.

Which was probably true, but still. He should have allowed Harry to _try_.

Harry really has no idea why he stayed with Malfoy as he long as he did. Part of him liked it.

But there's another part of him that needs the normality, the way he can talk to Daniel, the compromises, the way Daniel's happy to let Harry do favors for him, the laughter. When he was with Malfoy, only one of them was usually laughing at a time.

There's something wrong with that, surely.

Harry closes his eyes. He doesn't fall asleep as easily as Daniel, as easily as he did when he was with Malfoy. But that's the price he pays, and he chose to pay it.

* * *

"You needn't think that you can come back if you leave."

Harry goes on filling boxes, trunks, crates with his belongings. He never really realized how many of them came into the Manor with him. Every time he went out and bought something, he brought it back here. He shakes his head. He can't believe that his blankets have spent the past three years on that bed, or that he hasn't opened books he loves in his own space, ever. It's all been here.

"Did you hear me, Potter? I don't allow people who have abandoned me to return."

Harry turns around. Draco is standing at the head of the stairs, his arms folded, staring down at him.

"I know," Harry answers. "It's the _allow _part that I have trouble with. And don't worry. I'm leaving now. Soon you won't have to think about ever sharing with me again." His tongue curls around the words, and then he laughs. "Well, really, sharing, when has _that _ever happened?" He faces the last trunk and waves his wand one more time. A silver box appears in front of him, and pours his half of the money in it into the trunk. He wouldn't want to accidentally take anything that's Draco's.

_You are. Yourself. _

Harry grits his teeth. That stupid kind of thought is what he hopes to recover from, once he's outside Malfoy Manor. Hermione will be thrilled, he knows. She always thought that his relationship with Malfoy was unhealthy, and that there was nothing Malfoy could give Harry that he couldn't find elsewhere.

Sometimes it galls Harry to admit she's right, but other times, it would be stupid to go on pretending she's not.

He slams the lid of the trunk and turns around.

Malfoy's right behind him, come down from the stairs.

Harry blinks. He expected Malfoy would maintain his distance from him as Harry walked out of the house and his life. And it's true that he hasn't unfolded his arms or removed the scowl from his face.

But his lips are moving, slowly, as though they're made of stone and it takes Draco immense effort to shift them. "Stay," he says, and grimaces as though the lips have become stone again. "I want you."

"That's not enough," Harry tells him quietly.

"You want me."

"Also not enough," Harry says, and moves for the door.

"You know that you _like _it when I take care of you."

Harry looks back at him, standing in the glory of his hall, the place where all of his ancestors have been at home for generations, and Harry never has.

"I know," Harry says. "But I would also like it if you let me do the same for you once in a while. And I also like to be free. And I also like to be master. You can only satisfy one of those desires, you know."

"God, Potter, you're a mess." Malfoy's lip curls.

"I know," Harry says simply, and walks away, out the door, into the light.

Not _Harry, _even now, at the last.

Of course not. Draco can't.

Malfoy can't.

* * *

Harry opens his eyes and rolls them at the ceiling. Whenever he falls into thoughts of Draco, it always ends like this.

Yes, Harry misses him. Yes, Harry still wants him. Yes, the times that he sees him out somewhere and Draco stares at him, Harry would still want to go up to him and kiss him and touch his hair and let Draco fuck him.

But he couldn't stay. There's too much he wants that Draco can't give him.

And that Daniel can't give him, either.

Harry rolls back over and lays his head on the pillow, watching Daniel, his little huffing breaths and dark hair stirred by his breathing. It's one of the things that attracted Harry to him at once, how dark-haired he was, and thus different, from Draco.

But Daniel can give him _more. _Daniel lets him be equal and master. He can't take care of Harry, he can't let him be free all the time, but two out of four isn't bad. It's more than Draco was giving him.

_God, Potter, you're a mess._

There's that, Harry has to admit to himself as he rolls back into his stomach. There's definitely that. He shrugs to himself.

He wonders, sometimes, if it's significant that Malfoy hasn't taken up with anyone else since Harry walked out his door. Or the way that he stands over to the side at a few parties, sometimes, his eyes more on Daniel than Harry, looking as if he wants to murder him and hide his body somewhere.

But Harry can't go back. Draco said it. He wouldn't allow it. Harry made his decision.

_I suppose I'm still obeying him, in a way, even now, _Harry thinks, and his mouth twists in a wry, bitter curl. _But better to obey one order than a dozen._

And he goes to sleep, slowly, not instantly, not as warm, not as close, but that doesn't matter. He's made his choice.

**The End.**


End file.
